Pacific Northwest Potato Growers

While at the Potato Expo in Orlando last week, I visited with Syngenta Ag Agronomist Don Drader about what the region’s potato growers should be considering this time of year.
Drader: “Potato growers should have been thinking about their seed starting about the middle of last year. They should have taken the opportunity when available to go and look at the seed growers and identifying whether or not they are getting good seed from the growers. Identifying whether there is any virus in that seed — things like that. Then they need to look at the fields they will be moving into this coming season, identifying any disease pressure that they might have: specifically Rhizoc, Fusarium, Black Dot, Silver Scurf and that will help them to determine what seed treatments they will need to be thinking about this coming season. The seed treatment that we have that fits very well with most potato growers in the Pacific Northwest would be CruiserMaxx Potato and we also have CruiserMaxx Extreme for those growers that have Fusarium -resistence in their area. Fortunately in the Pacific Northwest we have very little of that so CruiserMaxx Potato at planting will take care of many of their disease needs and insecticide needs for insects like aphids and Colorado Potato Beetles and help in their management potato psyllid.”